Evenin'
From the White House Blog The Weekly Address
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/02/19/weekly-address-premiums-profits-and-need-health-reform
In my mail From PNHP
February 22, 2010
Dear PNHP members and friends,
We have some bad news and some good news.
1. The bad news is that President Obama's health proposal, as expected, retains all the structural flaws of the Senate health bill: A mandate that individuals (but not employers) purchase private coverage; over $400 billion in subsidies to the private health insurance industry; and funding through a steep excise tax on comprehensive health plans. At best, the plan will leave over 25 million Americans uninsured and tens of millions more underinsured.
Additionally, PNHP's request to be allowed to participate in Obama's health summit this Thursday, Feb. 25, has gone unanswered.
2. The good news is that single-payer advocates are garnering media attention and planning a "Sidewalk Summit for Medicare for All" outside Obama's official health summit this Thursday (with related actions in several cities on the same day).Dr. Margaret Flowers appeared on Bill Moyers Journal on Feb. 5(transcript). Today, Dr. Quentin Young's blog posting, Reprinted Below "Put single payer back on the table," appeared at The Huffington Post.This weekend, PNHP President Dr. Oliver Fein had an op-ed in the Huntsville (Alabama) Times in anticipation of his visit there later this week to give several talks.
PNHPers Dr. George Jolly (Saratoga, N.Y.), Dr. Rob Stone (Bloomington, Ind.), Dr. Anne Courtwright (Pueblo, Colo.) and Dr. Elinor Christiansen (Denver), who was interviewed by Colorado Public Radio, have also helped garner media coverage for single-payer recently.
Last week in Denver, Obama was greeted by throngs of grassroots single-payer supporters from Health Care for All Colorado and Dr. Flowers with "Medicare for All" signs outside (and even inside!) his events.
PNHPers can help with the following actions:
Call the White House at 202-456-1111 and ask that single payer, Medicare for All be "on the table" at the summit this Thursday and that PNHP congressional fellow and Baltimore pediatrician Dr. Margaret Flowers be admitted.
If you live in the DC-area, attend the "sidewalk summit" in your white coat and be prepared to speak to media on site about single payer.
If you live outside DC, please send letters and op-eds to your local paper or try to link up with one of the local actions (Healthcare-Now is keeping a list of these). A sample letter-to-the editor that you can modify is here and several sample op-eds are linked above.
In solidarity,
Ida Hellander, MD
Executive Director Mark Almberg
Communications Director
Put Single Payer Back on the Table
By Dr. Quentin Young
The Huffington Post
February 22, 2010
One year after its much-ballyhooed launch, the Obama administration's approach to health reform is now in serious disarray.
The president's health care summit on Feb. 25 is being portrayed as a last ditch bid to find some common ground with his "just say no" Republican opposition. He also faces an increasingly wary group of disgruntled Democrats, whose memory of the Massachusetts massacre -- the election of a Republican to Sen. Edward Kennedy's seat -- remains fresh.
The summit proceedings, which will be televised in the name of "transparency," will no doubt be laden with a formidable amount of stagecraft. They will be preceded by the unveiling of the president's own legislative proposal -- presumably the odious Senate bill with some tweaks -- a few days before.
But it's almost certain that this latest White House initiative, undertaken with the stated goal of salvaging and passing at least some elements of the stalled congressional bills, is foredoomed.
The House bill, contrary to many who believe otherwise, is disastrous. And if such a thing is possible, its Senate counterpart is even worse. Both would shovel hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the coffers of the private health insurance industry. Both would make it a federal offense, with fines, for a person to fail to buy the insurers' shoddy products.
Even so, at least 23 million people would remain uninsured under the new law. And those who have insurance would remain vulnerable to extort premium increases, not unlike Anthem Blue Cross' recently announced premium hikes of up to 39 percent in California.
While one could imagine the enactment of certain piecemeal measures that might ameliorate our condition -- e.g., a simple prohibition of insurance company denials of coverage because of pre-existing conditions -- these are precisely the stand-alone measures most stubbornly opposed by Republicans, conservative Democrats and their corporate patrons. Such concessions, in their eyes, must be linked to shoring up the very culprits who are most responsible for our health care mess.
The presence of the for-profit health industry -- the private health insurance conglomerate and the Big Pharma drug companies in the first place -- in the legislative process has certainly been "transparent" from the get go. Through their lobbyists and campaign contributions, they shaped a bill that would enhance their domination of our health system. They are at the root of the catastrophe that passes for health care financing in the United States today.
Of course, the conspicuous omission in the debate has been single-payer national health insurance proposal, an improved Medicare for All. This was assured on the Senate side when the powerful chairman of its Finance Committee, Max Baucus, D-Mont., informed the world that everything was on the table but single payer.
How the chairman of a congressional committee, however powerful, can set the terms of debate in a democratic society by excluding such a popular and well-substantiated solution is hard to rationalize. Baucus did, of course, prevail, and what came out of the Senate was execrable. Like the House bill, it fails the three tests of genuine reform: universal coverage, quality improvement and cost control.
One can reasonably suspect that President Obama now wants something -- anything -- to pass in Congress as evidence of the fulfillment of his campaign pledge to accomplish health care reform. But if he looks to the House and Senate bills as the starting point, his efforts will be in vain.
It's not too late for the president to re-embrace his earlier support for single-payer national health insurance and set the nation on the right path. Were he to lay out the facts to the American people and provide energetic leadership for this eminently rational proposal, he would get strong, grassroots support from the public.
We're now spending $8,000 per capita annually on health care, $2.5 trillion in total. That's nearly one-fifth of our GDP. Yet our health outcomes rank among the lowest in the industrialized world. Some 45,000 people die each year chiefly because they have no health insurance, and medical bills and illness are now linked to nearly two-thirds of personal bankruptcies. This reality in the richest country in the world is unnecessary and intolerable.
I suggest the president look to an improved and expanded Medicare program as the solution. Medicare, which was enacted in 1965 and which has served our elderly and the totally disabled so well, is a solid foundation to build upon.
Enactment of an improved Medicare for All would save our nation $400 billion annually by eliminating the bureaucracy and paperwork inflicted on our system by the private insurers. That's more than enough to provide universal, comprehensive care to everyone and to eliminate all co-pays and deductibles. A single-payer system would also allow us to rein in costs and better allocate resources.
We have a talented health care workforce. But to fully unlock their potential, we need to get out from under the greedy dictates of the health industry.
Mr. President, it's time to put single payer back on the table.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-quentin-young/put-single-payer-back-on_b_471811.html
From Dr. Lora Chamberlain
Hello to all,
I am sure you have heard, the Obama health care plan was unveiled today, it is similar to the Senate health care plan without a Public Option, it does propose some Federal agency which would regulate insurance rate increases, (these kind of Federal regulatory agencies have been historically quickly corrupted by corporations!) So we are going to have to fight hard for the Public Option, very hard! Please pick up the phone every day to call Congress 1-800-828-0498 and sign the petition below and if you can, please come to the meeting listed below on Wed night. Thanks so much for all that you do, Dr. Lora
"Pre-Summit Health Care Rally: The Time Is Now" on
Wednesday, February 24 at 6:00pm.
Event: Pre-Summit Health Care Rally: The Time Is Now
What: Rally
Start Time: Wednesday, February 24 at 6:00pm
End Time: Wednesday, February 24 at 7:00pm
Where: Chicago Temple,1st floor Sanctuary, Chicago
To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=316049972916
Back to me, for the future I see Global Healthcare for All
Meanwhile here at home from ((WUWM))
The poster features two women veterans, and it says, "We are veterans, too. Ms. or Mrs. will do."
www.npr.org
"More than 230,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, but many report that when they return from war, they face another battle at home: getting the care and respect they need at VA hospitals.
The traditionally male-dominated environment often doesn't recognize that women veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have experienced the same psychological, physical and emotional trauma as male veterans. VA hospitals across the nation are taking a number of steps to treat the whole female veteran"
Chit With ya',
Peter Lott Heppner
Chicago
P.S. Also Meanwhile
http://www.congress.org/news/2010/02/22/obama_unveils_health_plan
